


i'll play dead, and you can stay

by youcallitwinter



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-26
Updated: 2014-12-26
Packaged: 2018-03-03 16:19:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2857172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcallitwinter/pseuds/youcallitwinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He’s not the mechanic. He can’t fix this.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>interlude; a thousand ways of making it through the night.</p><p>[post spacewalker] [bellamy; raven/bellamy] [oneshot]</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'll play dead, and you can stay

**Author's Note:**

> The last episode could have not been any more shippy if it had tried, kill me now. Inspired by Greg Laswell's _Lie To Me_ , aka the most Bellamy/Raven song in the history of history [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2ALplepmDg]

_I will not confuse_  
 _this with something true_  
 _Only that what gets us through_

 

 

 

The first night- that night- he half carries her to her tent.  She’s lighter in his arms than he remembers. For what it's worth; he does remember. Practically weightless. Like she somehow carried the zero gravity back with her to the ground. He’s never space-walked, but this is what it must feel like. That she lets him hold her, doesn’t protest, as he half expects her to, is the uncertainty factor. Or, possibly, the Raven Reyes in his head, in his mind, isn't the real, human, flesh-and-blood version. He forgets the vulnerability sometimes. When he's only concentrating on her words, on her mouth. On the steel of her head and fist. Her defiant eyes. 

Forgets, sometimes, how soft her skin was. How brittle her bones. How easy it had been to leave marks with his mouth.

He stops. She crashes into him. Doesn’t say anything, still.

“We’re here.” Foolish, because obviously she can see that. She didn’t break her vision, just her heart.

She nods, maybe. “You can leave.” Her voice is scratchy, rough.

He lets the hand draped around her shoulder drop back to his side. Realizes he has no idea what to do with both of them any longer. Shoves them into his pockets instead.

“Okay.”

The plain truth is, he doesn’t want to leave. It’s one of those things at the back of his mind that he has no idea how to deal with.

She starts walking towards her tent, alone now. She almost trips on the way, her brace is loose. He automatically reaches out a hand. Stops just short of her. The gesture is instinctive. He didn’t know he was developing any sort of instinct in this regard. But, that isn’t news. There’s a lot he doesn’t know, he’s learned in the past few days.

And then: she turns back. The glance up at him is brief, but it hits him like a gut-punch; she doesn’t want him to leave.

He doesn't wait for her to say it. She won't anyway.

He’s beside her again in three long strides. She continues walking. He follows her in.

 

 

-

 

 

“I’m sorry,” he says, sometime during the night. He’s sitting on the ground, leaning against her bed. It’s an odd sort of arrangement, but it feels as if he can’t be next to her right now, like he supposed to leave the space for Finn’s ghost.

The thought is morbid. He shuts it down.

Her face is turned away from him, but the rise and fall of her chest is unnaturally even. She’s awake. She doesn’t answer, though.

“I should have tried harder,” he can feel pinpricks of rage, like needles, incessantly stabbing their way through his veins. He’s been had for a fool, again. He thought he could save the world.

For a moment, with a gun in his hand, and Raven beside him, fierce and whirlwind, he forgot who he really was. Almost became who he’s been pretending to be all this while. The guy with the plan.

“This,” she says, finally, “is not about you.”

That stings a little. It makes him defensive. “I didn’t mean-”

“Don’t mean.” When she turns to him, her lower lip is caught between her teeth, like she’s trying to stop shaking. He thinks of reaching out a hand again, steadying her, or something. Thinks better of it.

And suddenly, it builds up, the feeling. Exhaustion. He’s too tired to be the reason everything is wrong. The reason Raven Reyes is lying in front of him, almost completely disassembled. He’s not the mechanic here. He can’t fix this. He's not trained for this. He's a fucking janitor, what is he supposed to do.

He can't be vain enough, delusional enough to think himself capable of anything that could break her like this.

“It’s not my fault.”

“No,” she says, her hand coming up to brush a strand of hair out of her eyes. He follows the movement in his peripheral vision. “It’s not.”

It sounds like the truth when she says it.

 

 

-

 

 

The sounds outside never stop. Not everyone goes to sleep around here at the same time. He’s used to them, by now, but the movements seem unnaturally loud again tonight. He imagines whispered conferences, gun-shots, contingency plans. He can make out silhouettes against her tent, but he can’t make out anything beyond.

When he turns back to her, she’s staring straight ahead, through him, at the pantomime act played out on the flap in the moonlight. 

“Finn is dead.” Off-handed. Like she’s trying the words on for size.

It makes him reel back a little. “Don’t-”

“What?” She interrupts, “don’t _say it_? _Finn is dead_. How does it fucking make a difference if I say it? He won’t be any more alive, or any more dead if I say it out loud. _Finn is dead._ ”

There’s a cold edge to her voice that throws him off. It’s odd he hasn’t realized till this moment that he associates her with heat. Sharp edges, friction, and sparks. But heat. He thinks he drowned in her once.

“You,” he begins, and he has no idea what he’s going to say before he’s said it, “can cry if you want.”

He can feel the ghost of her head against his chest, still, his hand coming up to cradle her head, willing comfort. Like he could make it all alright through sheer force of will. That he could deal with. Pretend to, at least. But there's something terrifying about her dry-eyed, hollow gaze. It makes him feel frozen.

There’s a pause again. There are a lot of those this time.

She flares up. “You don’t need to tell me what-”

Her lower lip is half engraved with the mark of her teeth, bloodless. He draws his eyes away from her lips back to her eyes. She’s beautiful when exhausted. Beautiful when she lets him in. She’s beautiful when she doesn’t.

She stops, mid-sentence. Stares at him, searching. He doesn’t know what she’ll find. He schools his features.

“Okay," she says.

 

 

-

 

 

Her sleep is fitful. She screams once. Sits up, hand blindly reaching out. Doesn't find what she's looking for.

He says, “it’s okay, _Raven, you’re okay_. Listen to me.” He's said it so many times, he thinks he doesn't understand what the word means anymore. It sounds strange on his tongue. Unpronounceable. 

She turns to him, eyes burning, unfocused. “I feel like I got knifed. Through the fucking chest." She's pressing down far too hard with both hands against her chest, like she's trying to close a gaping wound. There's a strange disappointment in her eyes when she looks down at her unstained hands.

"It was  _my knife_ , Bellamy. Finn's blood _on my knife._ " Her breathing is unnatural, panicked. He thinks maybe she can’t figure out how to do it any more. 

 _Breathe_ , he says, _breathe, Rey, please_. Not out loud. His mouth feels too dry for words.

"I would have," she licks her chapped lips, "killed all of them. If I had to. Murphy. Lexa. Anyone. I wouldn't have thought twice. For Finn, I wouldn't have thought at all."

He thinks she might resent him her honesty by daybreak. May hate him for being here, seeing her like this, when she doesn't have a bullet handy. When she's not building by hand. When she's not saving the world.

"I know." 

He encircles her wrist. _Reach out,_ he thinks, ironically, _and touch someone_.

Her pulse is skyrocketing. He can feel the erratic pressure against his fingers. He thinks of the same incessant, over-fast hammering at the hollow of her throat, at her groin, the inside of her elbow, behind her knee, at her ankle, her feet. Over and over. Caging her in. It’s enough to make anyone go insane.

He half reaches up. She’s leaning over the side of the bed; her head bent, as if by force. Staring down with dark, wild, brutalized eyes. Her hair framing her face. She looks younger. And even now, even in the middle of _this_ , he can only think: it’s only the second time he’s seen her like this. This open. This young. It makes him an asshole. It makes him something worse. But that isn’t news.

The distance isn’t far, he can reach without getting up. When he presses his lips against the base of her throat, she doesn’t close her eyes. He can feel her chest caving in, as if she's been holding her breath all this while. Maybe she has. He can’t tell. He keeps his mouth firmly closed. The hammering is slower now, softer. Or his has quickened to the point that he’s no longer an objective judge on the relativity scale.

His other hand finds its way inside her jeans. Unbuttoning, unzipping with clumsy fingers. He thinks he might have been good at this at one point in time, in another country. He’s not now.

She falls back on the bed, his mouth loses the connection. She stares up at the ceiling, he stares at her instead. He hesitates when he feels the fabric of her boy-shorts. Wonders if they’re the same ones for a brief moment. Green.

She doesn’t open her legs wider, he doesn’t move her shorts aside, keeps his hand between her legs, on top of the fabric. His movement is slow, consistent. Her breathing is shallow. She’s shaking, still, almost imperceptibility now. But still. From grief, from arousal, he can’t tell any longer.

Maybe, he’ll think later, they spent half the night like that. Her eyes staring unblinking up at the ceiling, or perhaps beyond the ceiling at the sky, at the ghost of the Ark, the ghosts off the Ark. His eyes on every curve of her face, hand between her legs. Or technically, it may just have been a few minutes. He has no watch to keep time by. 

This is about Finn, again. He won't think it in the moment, but he'll think it later, accidentally, a nanosecond before his head catches on and he hates himself; maybe someday, it won't be. That makes him an asshole. It makes him worse.

“It’s going to be-”

He hesitates. Her mouth curves up a little; mocking, tired.

“Go ahead,” she says, voice low, almost a whisper. He has to strain to hear. She's not looking at him, even now. He can't read her lips. “Lie to me. I’ll believe in anything you say tonight.”

He thinks he probably won't be able to make her come this time, again. Fucking be a failure _again_  at the only thing he can do right now. Only thing he's ever done for her.

But when she arches into his hand, instead of away, he realizes she's willing herself to come as hard as he is. Her muted _Bellamy_ sounds like a foreign language, but he translates anyway. She's not holding on, she's willing herself to let go. This is the only truth he can give her tonight.

 _Come on,_ he encourages, and it's strange how all the desperation is his,  _Raven, please._

But he'll remember this later, even without a watch, without a sense of time: when she comes, she closes her eyes. And breathes out.

 

 

-

 

 

The daybreak is anti-climactic. The sun’s rays penetrate through the opening of the tent, hit him straight in the face. He wakes up, shades his eyes, blinking rapidly. He doesn’t remember how, when, he fell asleep. His head aches fiercely, it feels like he accidentally banged it against something last night. Can't recall for sure.

He turns to look at her. She’s already looking at him. Doesn’t break his gaze. Doesn’t flinch. There's a focus to her glance; she's looking at him, not past.

"I'm beginning," she murmurs, her voice sounds sleep-heavy and wide awake all at once. Raven is a mess of contradictions, "to mistake you for someone who cares."

It takes him a moment to understand. He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. Fuck his life.

She sits up in her bed. It's when she buttons her jeans, that he realizes she'd left them unbuttoned, hadn't dressed and walked away- asked him to walk away. She re-straps the leg-brace, tightening it. Swings her legs down, beside him. Stands up. Her movements are slow, tired, back bent, like it hurts her to move. She's still moving, though.

There's still a deep crease in the middle of her forehead, dark circles under her eyes. A dullness to her that he doesn't associate with her in his head. He wants to smooth her brow with his fingers, but they're not there. Not just yet.

“You made it,” he manages. Because apparently he can’t open his mouth, without shoving his foot in.

Her mouth curves up again, tightly, barely. “Only a lifetime more to go.”

Her tone is cutting. There's no amusement. No panic either. Or, he just can't read her well enough yet, when she isn't allowing him to.

He can feel the chill set in in his bones. The stupidity of a night spent freezing on the ground for no conceivable reason. His throat feels dry, parched. The cold cramping his legs. When he tries to get up, he stumbles. Can’t feel his feet. 

She reaches out a hand. He takes it. She pulls him up, steadies him.

Her hand is warm in his. Warmer than his. Friction, he thinks, strangely enough. Thinks he should probably let go, when he can finally stand on his own, when the sharp pins-and-needles has receded to a general dull throb inside all over his body.

Doesn't, though.

“-Okay.” He completes from the night before, even though the night is over, and his cold comfort is just as hollow as ever. His thumb instinctively strokes the back of her hand. He can feel her tense lines give in, just a little. Or maybe he's just filling her in his head. Projecting. “You’re going to be okay.”

Her hair is already tied up. He doesn't know how long she's been awake.

She nods. Like she believes it. Believes him. That's a lie.

She hasn't yet let go either, he notices.

“Okay.” She repeats. Or answers. He can’t tell. Her voice breaks on the last letter, but they both pretend not to notice. The day, he's beginning to learn, is for pretenses. But he'll be with her all nights she needs him. The thought is half-formed. Maybe she won't let him in. He'll be there anyway.

They're both lying, he knows. But if they're both lying, if they both want to believe anyway, want so badly to believe, then maybe that's the only truth there is. 

He follows her out of the tent, closes the flap on the way, leaves the night on the ground. She doesn't shade her eyes against the sun.

 

 

 

_But I wonder down the line,_  
 _when both of us are fine,_  
 _my mind wanders there sometimes._


End file.
